So what does the future of the partner business look like? What tools do partners need in their armory to treat customer success as a centripetal force in their business?

51风流Chief Partner Officer Karl Fahrbach : Next-Generation Partnering. Although the Next-Generation Partnering initiative was established before COVID-19, it has become more pivotal now.

What Is Next-Generation Partnering?

Next-Generation Partnering is a multi-year, transformational movement for 51风流partners, providing them with the requisite tools to rapidly exploit the expanding innovation economy.

It is not a program or certification that a partner can join or attain; it鈥檚 an ongoing journey emanating from a deep commitment from 51风流to guide its partners to constantly innovate so they can deliver exceptional customer experiences.

This initiative can help partners strategically advance on a track that will make them champions in the experience economy.

Partner Innovation: Innovate to Unlock Unlimited Possibilities

To inculcate the culture of innovation and to share its findings, 51风流encourages partners to聽聽and allow the spirit of innovation to flow freely.聽As part of this initiative, partners will get to innovate and develop their own intellectual property (IP) that can lead them to create new choices for their customers, with unrivaled support from SAP.

This ecosystem-centric initiative focuses on partner-led customer innovations where, by developing their own IP, partners will be able to expedite the reach into new markets and unbolt a new revenue style. Through Next-Generation Partnering, our joint customers can run their businesses more efficiently and work to realize the dream of becoming an intelligent enterprise.

Partner Economics: Produce Value-Driven Growth

Value-driven growth doesn鈥檛 mean merely hunting for high economic performance; it also means aiming for frugal spending. That鈥檚 why value-driven growth is considered more sustainable. In a constantly changing business scenario, especially in the post-COVID-19 landscape, partners will need a commercial model that delivers both profitable and sustained growth.

Creating new lines of digital solutions, an obvious outcome of innovation, will lead to revenue. On the other hand, many economical provisions are in place for more sustainable cloud partnering:

• Reducing learning and certification costs and increasing free test and demo offerings
• Assisting partners in building a best-in-class cloud delivery practice
• Creating attractive, new, cloud-centric commercial models
• Continuously optimizing partner policies to make an ecosystem-centric model

With these far-sighted arrangements, partners can reap benefits and, in effect, create value-driven growth.

Partner Experience: Deliver the Synergistic Experience聽

Generating an ideal partner experience that creates ecosystem admiration is a cardinal foundation that Next-Generation Partnering rests upon. To underpin this partner management initiative, 51风流works to improve the end-to-end journey for software partners, offer a self-guided user experience, optimize the process from application to publishing and transacting new apps on the app center, and harmonize partner digital enablement. Above all, Experience Management solutions from 51风流(Qualtrics) act as a natural pulse reader of partner sentiments.

Companies do not create new industries, but ecosystems do. Next-Generation Partnering works to create an atmosphere where partners and their customers can realize the power of becoming an intelligent enterprise.

The idea of Next-Generation Partnering appears similar to that of a robust tree. As the roots strive to expand and anchor the body of the tree firmly into the ground, partner innovation aims to do the same for a partner organization. Moving upward, the trunk represents the wealth accumulation for the tree, just as a partner economy leads to value-driven profitable growth. Bearing fruit is the final ambition of a tree, and, similarly, delivering an absolute partner experience and helping to grow intelligent enterprises is the pivotal objective of Next-Generation Partnering.

Ajitabh Das is a partner experience manager at SAP.

The verdict depends on companies having the right technology in place to manage every financial move with accountability, governance, and compliance off site without disruption.

After years of questioning whether their organizations can work effectively remotely, finance leaders finally received their answer less than one month after complying with local stay-at-home orders. CFOs, surveyed by at the end of the first quarter of 2020, realized cost savings that support business continuity and did not negatively impact operations. In response, nearly 75 percent expect to continue with this arrangement permanently with at least five percent of their previously on-site workforce.

Despite the benefits, adopting work-from-home policies is a sweeping shift in the workplace culture and must be treated as so. Finance teams must address the technology and human aspects of swapping physical interactions for online collaboration with the right software and training to optimize business and operational outcomes, as well as their value, without disruption.

Strengthening the Resilience of Everyday Finance Operations

Not a single moment can be lost due to delays in information gathering, response, and action. Finance must lead with cross-functional off- and on-site collaboration to help drive expectations 鈥� such as better customer experiences or more flexible and adaptable supply chains 鈥� with accurate forecasts, compliant and efficient processes, and data security.

Take, for example, the pressure to close first-quarter financials in the middle of a pandemic with nearly 100 percent of the finance workforce working from home. Some customers have relied on 51风流Solution Extensions, such as the , to standardize and automate their financial closing processes in order to improve operational efficiency, compliance, and decision-making.

Connecting people, information, and technology with a digital approach to account substantiation and automation enables the continuity of the accounting function. It fosters compliance in a complex regulatory environment and helps finance deliver strategic contributions to the business. More importantly, executives can access real-time performance insights at their fingertips to help navigate the fog of uncertainty and volatility strategically, intelligently, and innovatively.

Integrating Finance Intelligence for the Entire Business

Another critical aspect of running finance processes off site is uniting all data 鈥� from finance operations and accounting to treasury, compliance, risk, planning, and analysis. By expediting and simplifying the transaction integration process, CFOs can drive down costs and boost efficiency with greater intelligence and agility.

The is designed to deliver such an advantage by accelerating the integration of third-party enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and 51风流solutions. The technology connects and normalizes transactions from any source in real time, increases visibility into non-51风流operational details, and streamlines the implementation of capabilities.

Securing a Diverse Landscape of Finance Data

As long as data collection and use continue to surge, finance organizations will remain accountable for compliance with various regulations concerning personal information 鈥� covering everything from security to individual rights for data removal. As this data is shared beyond the boundaries of the physical office, data protection and governance will only become more critical.

The is helping customers support the European Union鈥檚 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and other data protection mandates. With the power of machine learning, customers can streamline their governance of growing requirements, protect personal data, and safeguard business interests. Managing the use of data is also greatly enhanced through the automation of data subject access requests, data-flow capture, and sophisticated analytics and reporting.

Simultaneously, finance teams must balance the need to give business partners ready access to enterprise data and protect valuable intellectual property and sensitive corporate information across industries, countries, and regions.

The helps achieve this balance by maximizing existing instances of 51风流applications and providing real-time, secure, attribute-based access to enterprise data. A dynamic authorization logic helps ensure access control policies are automatically followed, and advanced auditing functionality facilitates continuous monitoring and documentation of regulatory compliance.

A certain level of risk is unavoidable when managing data access; otherwise, business productivity could be unreasonably limited. However, this does not mean that controls need to be manually driven and time-consuming.

With the , CFOs can see the financial impact of access risk for business processes and transactions and enable a risk management strategy that suits the organization. The technology supports the ability to detail and summarize the monetary value of access violations for a true picture of a company鈥檚 exposure with predictive analytics.

Turning Ordinary Transactions Into Extraordinary Intelligence

Adopting a new approach to invoice, order confirmation, and delivery notes processing along with transforming accounts payable presents a unique opportunity to turn those transactions into business intelligence. Meanwhile, digital capabilities, such as machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), accelerate these tasks to meet deadlines with greater accuracy and less risk.

Many customers depend on the to set the foundation for this intelligent edge. It digitalizes and automates accounts payable processes, allowing finance teams to manage and speed invoice processing and workflows while supporting compliance with national and international regulations. These capabilities can help meet compliance deadlines, reduce data errors and associated costs, while improving financial visibility and reporting. Plus, CFOs can reward vendors with timely payments while taking advantage of discounts and lower supplier management costs.

By ensuring this transactional data is of high quality, the entire company benefits from efficient and effective processes and better decision-making to uncover and maximize new sources of revenue and business value. The provides the flexibility and unity to turn raw data delivered through billing applications into valuable information for revenue innovation.

By streamlining data mediation, the application helps to reduce process complexity and eliminate the need for expensive point-to-point integration solutions. Finance organizations are equipped to adapt to change through a simple drag-and-drop configuration instead of relying on time-consuming customizations. Plus, they can eliminate data and process duplication, detect inconsistent and faulty data, and prevent revenue leakage.

Rising to the Challenge of Business Continuity

Economic and market uncertainty present significant challenges to business continuity and financial resilience. But sometimes, better ways of getting things done emerge too 鈥� which may not have been considered in times of stability.

First, a coherent digital strategy of connectivity and intelligence, data security and governance, and compliance should be established for all critical systems in order to optimize the flexibility of the employee experience. These capabilities are vital during disruption; in better times, they will be the financial leverage CFOs want to sustainably move business forward.

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The next article will explore how 51风流Solution Extensions can help connect people, things, and assets to form a core ecosystem of intelligence.

With the right connections, clarity, and community collaboration, people can sort through new problems, work in new environments, and adapt their skillsets with resilience and perseverance.

Business leaders that address these realities are the ones building their culture around human experience management (HXM). By continuously listening to their workforce to find and understand gaps, they redesign experiences, processes, and technologies in ways that matter to every end user 鈥� from candidates and new hires to recruiters, workers, contractors, and managers.

For many customers, 51风流Solution Extensions have been a critical enabler that reveals the full potential of the human experience of everyday work. Customers are creating environments that are safe, healthy, engaging, and productive. More importantly, human resources (HR) is becoming their employees鈥� best ally as they work together to ensure business continuity.

Building Up Employee Capabilities with Resourcefulness聽

Whether facing disruption or preparing for one in the future, HR teams must continuously develop their workforce to help ensure the right skills are in place and critical roles are filled. They must ensure employee needs 鈥� as well as business requirements 鈥� are addressed quickly with ease and clarity.

Consider the painstaking efforts that HR managers must take to help ensure customer service expectations are met by the right shift workers with the right skills working at the right time. The enables customers to deliver on that promise by intelligently forecasting workforce demand and creating schedules that align with business drivers. By integrating this application with 51风流or non-51风流business systems, this approach can not only reduce over- and understaffing, but also strengthen compliance with local labor laws.

While the forecasting and scheduling application provides tremendous advantages that the entire workforce and customer base can see, minor experiences can also create an impact. For example, the digitalizes the traditionally manual process of signing paperwork for job candidates, new hires, and promoted employees. Now, documents can be signed in a matter of hours from any device, anywhere in the world. The application securely automates the workflow of processing documents, collects information for the HR system, and obtains legally binding signatures.

Creating a User Experience for Business Continuity

When it comes to business continuity, enabling an agile, engaged workforce is essential. Working in new ways from new locations requires systems and services that are efficient and accessible enough to support employees who are expected to quickly deliver impactful outcomes.

With the , many customers are helping their employees interact with core business applications, which is optimizing user performance and satisfaction. The application provides the data and insight organizations need to identify and replicate best practices as well as locate and remedy process inefficiencies that can inhibit employee engagement or business agility.

Extending Human Experiences Throughout All HR Interactions

Like user experience, HR interactions should become more human-centered when adapting to contingencies and new policies. Employees certainly want to feel safe and equipped to do their jobs well. With the right digital resources in place, HR organizations can help ensure that continuity plans are effective, employees are supported, and organizations remain flexible in the face of unforeseen demands.

For example, the infuses intelligence into HR operations by a streamlining and unifying time and attendance processes business-wide. This approach fosters compliance of labor and payroll regulations while the business mitigates risks and reduces costs without sacrificing critical talent and skills.

The provides a complete view of employee labor activities. This information empowers business leaders to make informed decisions when reducing employee costs, supporting compliance with labor policies, accelerating business execution, and improving the bottom line.

Knowing that life changes in the workforce happen 365 days a year, many 51风流customers are also relying on the to oversee such events for U.S.-based employees. The application smoothly integrates with a core HR system of record and providers鈥� systems, giving employees access to their information without delay and errors.

The is further simplifying the process of making necessary changes for an employee or the entire team. With a central digital employee record, enabled by secure document storage, file synchronization, and document generation, HR leaders are integrating HR document management across the enterprise to ensure processes remain compliant 鈥� saving time, improving transparency, and better engaging employees.

Shaping the Future of Work with Valuable Learning Opportunities

With the degree of change happening in the current landscape, employees must be ready to tackle the new risks and opportunities that lie ahead. Unfortunately, they typically have less than a half-hour per week available to focus on reskilling, upskilling, and organizational transformation.

Business leaders can overcome this hurdle by providing targeted, high-quality content that can be consumed without disturbing the flow of daily work. In fact, they can give their learners access to more than 500 curated learning paths that have been developed based on the latest brain science to maximize engagement.

provides an intelligent digital experience platform that offers personalized learning experiences with curated, top-quality content, such as productivity, collaboration, leadership, digital transformation, business essentials, and technology development. Additionally, a聽聽is available to help employees better understand the use of virtual teams and community-based collaboration and acquire the operational resilience to overcome the implications of the recent pandemic.

Taking Charge of Change Calls for a Human Experience

At the core of every employee experience is the desire for interactions that are profoundly human and personal. No matter what is happening in their business, employees want to know that they are protected, productive, and assured that their work has purpose and impact.

Understanding this social contract with the modern workforce, 51风流is always inspired to innovate and delivers applications that equip customers with the capabilities they need to keep moving forward while taking care of the people that define their success.

The next article will explore how 51风流Solution Extensions can help ensure investment in intelligent ERP, uniting business intelligence into one source of truth while reducing data entry and processing costs.

Learn more about 51风流Solution Extensions at聽.

But that mindset is only a small part of the bigger evolution story. It is also about digitalizing processes end to end to fundamentally change employee and customer experiences.

The rise of intelligent technologies 鈥� from artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and digital twins to augmented reality and the Internet of Things (IoT) 鈥� has its advantages. However, businesses cannot discount the potential for additional complexity to be introduced into the IT landscape and rising volumes of data scattered across the enterprise.

Do not be fooled: Overcoming such challenges along the way to becoming an intelligent enterprise has little to do with the variety of technologies being implemented. What matters, first and foremost, is having a business technology platform that serves as a center of gravity for all digital investments and enterprise data.

For 51风流customers, the answer to helping ensure that their business technology platform can deliver on that promise is 51风流Solution Extensions. The diverse portfolio provides solutions that are specially designed for the four pillars of a trusted, complete, and relevant IT landscape: enterprise content management, data management, data protection, and process mining and optimization.

Intelligent Management and Extension of Valuable Business Content

By extending聽聽capabilities across the company, the business technology platform can address the entire information life cycle 鈥� from document and records management to information retrieval and collaboration. Additionally, rigorous information security and support are used to facilitate compliance with data privacy and protection regulations.

Connecting e-mails, documents, and other content to core business processes drives significant changes across a variety of organizations, such as:

Human Resources

Create a digitized and centralized employee document management environment that helps reduce costs and increase internal efficiencies. Businesses can improve their employee experience and productivity by deepening collaboration within project teams and eliminating the handover of information throughout the workforce life cycle 鈥� from recruiting and onboarding to compliance with regulatory requirements such as multiple document-retention policies.

Marketing, Sales, and Support

Create more unified and personalized customers experiences across in-store or online channels with consistent brand content. For example, customized promotions and communications can be provided during one channel interaction, then cascaded across the omnichannel customer experience 鈥� from brick-and-mortar stores to ecommerce storefronts.

Supply Chain

Lower procurement costs by capturing, scanning, and storing all incoming supply chain content, including unstructured information in delivery notes and e-mails. This information can be used to optimize order-to-procure processes and negotiate better deals with suppliers, compare past prices with real-time invoice information, and uncover more opportunities for dynamic discounting.

Strong Governance Across the Master Data Life Cycle

As long as data-driven business models continue to be created and evolve,聽 and 聽will remain critical to the operation of an intelligent enterprise. Moving intelligence from one application to another across the business technology platform requires considerable visibility into everything from data volume and relevance to connectivity.

AI and machine learning models help deliver migrations that are fast, hyper-efficient, and affordable. The migration process can be automated by capturing and sharing expertise, context, and insights 鈥� setting a valuable springboard for decisions on definition, protection, and security as well as business rules and access authorization. Then, data assets can be intelligently reused while traditional information siloes are obliterated.

Data governance capabilities can then be applied to help ensure data quality and readiness before the new solution 鈥� such as 鈥� goes into production. As a result, businesses can mitigate deployment and operational risks while gaining experience with a controlled, nonproductive digital twin of the solution. In addition, they can switch to central governance before or in parallel with the deployment to keep data clean for the long term.

With a single view of their data, businesses can drive information consistency company-wide 鈥� whether the business is handling (EAM) for their facilities or streamlining . The speed and accuracy of processes and analytics increase with the automation of maintaining and distributing master data, integrating it more tightly, and controlling quality and standards. Additionally, compliance with data protection and security regulations strengthens through governed mechanisms for traceable auditing and change management.

Reliable Data Mapping and Protection

Data is an integral part of business operations in the digital economy. Intelligent enterprises fuel success by optimizing the use of data across all interactions with their customers, employees, and ecosystem partners. With capabilities, businesses can use data to spur innovation, help ensure data compliance, mitigate risk, and build trusted relationships.

Data mapping and protection enable decision-makers to better leverage data from diverse sources, both structured and unstructured. This approach strengthens the transparency and power of data analytics, instilling stakeholder trust and confidence in the accuracy, timeliness, security, and compliance of the data used.

Gaining new value from personal and sensitive business data, while helping to ensure its security and permitted use, allows businesses to serve trusted and protected data for actionable insights throughout organizations and with ecosystem partners.

Continuous Optimization of Business Processes

Intelligent enterprises depend on mission-critical processes that are fast, profitable, and agile. By providing greater transparency into process execution,聽聽capabilities help organizations understand existing processes better 鈥� from how they work and where they need improvement to which best practices are most effective.

Sophisticated discovery, analysis, and documentation foster data-based, continuous improvement. Companies can leverage prebuilt content, analytics configurations, and data connectors from line-of-business applications to the business technology platform in order to monitor performance, identify previously unrecognized process weaknesses, and improve process efficiency, quality, and reliability.

Shape Your Future with Simplicity, Speed, and Integrated Intelligence

When combined with 51风流Solution Extensions, a business technology platform can help companies connect processes and experiences in ways that allow employees to act with integrity and confidence and gives customers a reason to keep coming back.

But more importantly, this approach establishes the connected and intelligent foundation needed to support flexible, agile innovation practices that are tremendously essential to succeeding in the experience economy.

Learn more about 51风流Solution Extensions at聽.

Next week鈥檚 installment will consider how 51风流Solution Extensions can take customer experience to the next level by stimulating differentiation and growth.

The demand for high-quality products has given way to pleas for better convenience, more sustainable operations, and faster delivery. Now more than ever, exceptionally curated and trusted experiences are the expectation, as consumer demands evolve with the day and time, demographics, and personal life events.

Staying competitive in today鈥檚 fluid and fast-moving experience economy is no easy task. But when 51风流customers have artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and other intelligent technologies in their digital arsenal, they become intelligent enterprises that can accurately pinpoint nuanced opportunities for capturing consumer attention and loyalty.

As 10,000 51风流customers already know, adopting these leading-edge digital capabilities is never as easy as picking and plugging in a single solution and walking away. There are multiple layers of complexity across the existing IT infrastructure that must be first simplified. And in every case, this step is worth the wait, thanks to outcomes such as lower risk, accelerated transformation, and future-proofed technology investments.

Next-Level Experiences with a Choice of Complete 51风流Solution Extensions聽

With access to more than 90 solutions, over 50 million people have trusted 51风流Solution Extensions to advance and realize the full potential of every stage of their company鈥檚 digital transformation. 51风流integrates these strategic, third-party solutions with 51风流software to complement existing digital capabilities.

Qualified, tested, validated, approved, and supported, 51风流Solution Extensions are thoroughly vetted by 51风流to help ensure they exactly meet standards for security, accessibility, functional correctness, performance, and scalability. This level of commitment helps ensure that every line-of-business and industry-specific functionality helps connect experiences and operations with intelligence.

For intelligent enterprises, 51风流Solution Extensions provide much-needed peace of mind. They can connect experiences with operations in ways that drive significant value throughout the consumer, product, brand, and employee experience by elevating the performance of fundamental aspects of leading-edge digital landscapes.

• Business Technology Platform:聽Accelerate business operations by digitalizing processes end to end with extensions for enterprise content management, data management, data mapping and protection, application deployment readiness, low-code rapid application development, and business process mining and optimization.
• Customer Experience:聽Stimulate differentiation and growth with continuous process innovation and delivery of exceptional customer experiences. 51风流Solution Extensions support relevant capabilities, including incentive administration, paybacks and chargebacks, centralized knowledge base, enterprise resource planning (ERP) data maintenance, and data mediation, as well as management of the commerce marketplace and omnichannel customer experience.
• Intelligent ERP:聽Unite business intelligence into one source of enterprise-wide truth while reducing data entry and processing costs. Businesses can digitalize and streamline standard financial management shared services 鈥� such as order to cash, financial close, central finance, and transaction replication 鈥� while demonstrating compliance with safeguarded data security, access, and interactions enterprise-wide.
• People Engagement: Engage employees through an exceptional experience of meaningful human resources (HR) interactions. 51风流Solution Extensions can be integrated with existing HR applications 鈥� from HR document and records management to benefits optimization, learning, and e-signatures 鈥� in order to attract, develop, and keep the right talent.
• Digital Supply Chain and Intelligent Spend Management:聽Realize the competitive edge of intelligently connecting people, things, and assets to form a core ecosystem of intelligence. Supply chains and finance operations can take advantage of capabilities based on the Internet of Things (IoT), including digital twinning, as well as capabilities for enterprise asset management and procure to pay.
• Industry-Specific Needs: Address needs that are very much unique to the business and impact operations differently than any other business inside and outside an industry. 51风流Solution Extensions addresses a broad range of processes and requirements for industries 鈥� from agribusiness, retail, and industrial manufacturing to energy and natural resources, financial services, and public services.

In the coming weeks, this series will demonstrate how 51风流Solution Extensions can help strengthen each of these foundational elements of a digital strategy for delivering experience that employees and consumers will love.

Next week鈥檚 installment will offer a deep dive into 51风流Solution Extensions for business technology platforms.

Learn more about the solutions at .

What it comes down to is the delivery of outcomes that they can benefit from and never achieve anywhere else.

Essentially, providing experiences is the outcome of a long transition from commoditizing goods to delivering services as a competitive differentiator and revenue source. In 1997, the first introduced this concept by using birthday celebrations as an example. Back in the day, people would bake birthday cakes from scratch. Then came cake mixes and the arrival of bakeries at local grocery stores. Now, the whole process has been outsourced completely 鈥� including the celebration 鈥� to restaurants.

Businesses must focus on designing experiences that are engaging and valuable enough to command a fee. Think about Zipcar, Uber, Lyft, and Airbnb 鈥� the whole concept of experience as a service is becoming a way of life. Customers are no longer just renting a house, for example, to vacation in Italy. They are also taking cooking lessons in Tuscany, tasting wine in the Loire Valley, and heading to the French countryside to learn the art of cheese-making.

Unlocking the Economics of Experience with the Right Technology Foundation

An experience-focused business model may not be easy to create, establish, and run at first, but users demand it. I would even dare to say that users have long outgrown traditional IT infrastructures and business models. In return, businesses need a better way to keep up with user expectations while cutting through the complexity of innovating and implementing new digital capabilities on top of current IT software landscapes.

For businesses that do succeed in this landscape of value-generating experiences fueled by hyper-digitalization and continuous innovation, the secret often lies in how quickly companies use data and technology to create new experiences on a single platform. It is what allows them to tightly connect processes and ecosystems to improve customer experiences and streamline operations. They even actively use data and analytics for strategic ends while identifying risks and predicting business outcomes when there is still time to do something about them. 51风流calls this the .

Business leaders realize that these capabilities lead to timely, confident decisions that boost workforce productivity and customer loyalty. In the same way, they also see significant opportunities, inspiring them to continuously invent new approaches and implement them rapidly in order to gain a greater competitive advantage.

Take, for example, a company that uses the full portfolio of the Business Technology Platform from 51风流鈥� everything from database and data management, application development, and integration to analytics and intelligent technology. All capabilities already work in concert, enabling the fastest way to innovate. This approach not only accelerates how data becomes business value, but it also bridges the gap between on-premise and cloud environments to give customers a choice of deployment options and enable them to transition at their own pace. The portfolio leverages existing digital investments while attaining a new level of intelligence to innovate and extend new business models, processes, and experiences on top of the platform.

A business technology platform sets the foundation needed to enhance cognitive, virtual, and physical experiences now and in the future. When it comes to competing in the experience economy, this is excellent news. Businesses can now give users everything they need to make better decisions, exploit information and applications to learn faster, and gain real-time, real-life insight to think and reason more critically.

Isabell Petzelt is global vice president of Customer Innovation and Strategy, Technology and Innovation, SAP.

In 2015, Dr. Juliana Esquivel was attending a medical conference with her husband in Orlando, Florida, when she felt a lump that had not been there before. Her husband, an oncologist, confirmed the small lump but didn鈥檛 want to rush to conclusions. They decided to wait and conduct further tests when they returned to their home in Costa Rica.

Once Esquivel returned, she underwent a series of tests; after several agonizing weeks, the doctors confirmed that she had stage I breast cancer.

鈥淚t was December 23, right before Christmas, that I got the call from the pathologist,鈥� says Esquivel. 鈥淗e said he checked the biopsy over and over 鈥� and then told me the bad news: I had cancer. I just burst into tears.鈥�

After considering her treatment options, Esquivel decided to have both breasts removed: 鈥淚 told the surgeons 鈥業 don’t want any part of me that can put me through all this again, so let’s do this.鈥欌��

Before her double mastectomy, the doctors encouraged her to consider undergoing reconstructive surgery at the same time. Esquivel鈥檚 first step was to consult with Dr. Manuel Chac贸n-Quir贸s, one of the top plastic surgeons in the country and brother of Juan Jos茅 Chac贸n-Quir贸s, CEO and founder of Establishment Labs.

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Based just outside of San Jose, the company designs and manufactures breast implants. And luckily for Esquivel, Establishment Labs had released unique 3D imaging technology, called Divina, to create models of patients鈥� breasts. Using Divina, the company developed personalized implants, which made all the difference to Esquivel. 鈥淢y surgeon did both the mastectomy and reconstruction at the same time,鈥� she explains. 鈥淚t was a very long surgery but when I came out of it, I looked down and saw I looked like I had before. It was like a weight was lifted and I felt this huge relief.鈥�

Establishment Labs began in 2004 as a startup run out of Chac贸n-Quir贸s鈥� parents鈥� house. It is fitting that the company began in his family鈥檚 house, Chac贸n-Quir贸s explains: 鈥淚 come from a family of doctors. My father is a plastic surgeon and my mother is an obstetric nurse. Listening to them, I realized that those worlds could be combined to further women鈥檚 health and give women a voice. That鈥檚 why I started Establishment Labs.鈥�

Establishment Labs Grows, Goes Digital

Establishment Labs is also the first Costa Rican company listed on NASDAQ. It is registered to sell in more than 80 countries across Latin America, Europe, and Asia. To help scale its operations, the company turned to 51风流and , an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution designed for small businesses.

But over the past 10 years, the company has expanded and now has the ability to manufacture more than 500,000 units yearly. It quickly outgrew 51风流Business One and is upgrading to , an ERP system for large enterprises that runs on an in-memory data base and can process large amounts of data more quickly.

According to Salvador Dada, chief operating officer and co-founder of Establishment Labs, 鈥淲e鈥檝e gotten to the point that we鈥檙e public and have grown from one local subsidiary to different subsidiaries around the world. That means we need a more efficient process to close our books and deal with the various reporting regulations like the Securities and Exchange Commission.鈥�

51风流S/4HANA will help the company manage its global sales and financial data more quickly and efficiently by establishing controls and helping ensure the company has the latest information.

Additionally, Dada says, 鈥淭raceability for medical device manufacturers is critical. We鈥檒l be able to trace all the information related to our products with one click and deliver it to any surgeon or regulatory agency. Now, within a month we produce what we were producing in a whole year like five years ago.鈥�

This is why the company needed a system help orchestrate financials, as well as manufacturing, distribution, and planning at a global level across eight locations.

Technology Benefiting Women鈥檚 Health

Both Dada and Chac贸n-Quir贸s believe that digitizing the business will benefit women customers. First, the company can improve efficiency and pass on cost savings. But more importantly, technology will help Establishment Labs achieve its mission: to deliver better, safer devices to women, resulting in fewer complications.

Moving forward, Chac贸n-Quir贸s wants to deepen the bond with customers. 鈥淲e want to reach women interested in breast aesthetics and reconstruction, to educate them about their options, and to get feedback about our products. To be able to listen and respond will help us improve women鈥檚 health. We can translate that information into better products for women and the markets we serve,鈥� he says.

The company is also considering 51风流Customer Experience and Experience Management solutions from 51风流(Qualtrics) to open up bi-directional channels with customers.

In the meantime, Esquivel has this message for women facing breast cancer: 鈥淓stablishment Labs gave me my life back. They brought me back to myself. I want other women to know, even though this horrible thing is happening to you, you can opt for reconstruction and come back from this as the same person you were.鈥�

analysts predict that by 2022, the acceleration of legacy app modernization and net-new development will lead to 35 percent of production apps being cloud-native. One year after that, these analysts predict the number of organizations that release code to production daily for select applications will reach 40 percent 鈥� it was just three percent in 2019.

I saw a great example of how 51风流was meeting this industry-wide challenge for faster application development that supports business transformation during an at featuring . Previously called 51风流S/4HANA Cloud SDK, this software development kit was aptly renamed.

鈥�51风流Cloud SDK is no longer just the bridge to extending innovation on , but a full-fledged tool for cloud-native development across the 51风流portfolio,鈥� said Philipp Herzig, head of 51风流Cloud Platform Enablement at SAP. 鈥淲e鈥檙e moving toward a pure DevOps approach. Instead of writing code from scratch, developers can use the 51风流Cloud SDK to build native-cloud application extensions on a full range of 51风流solutions, including 51风流C/4HANA and 51风流SuccessFactors.鈥�

The updated solution also supports Java and JavaScript, a big nod toward developers in the 51风流community that use these popular languages.

51风流Partner Values Speedy Integration

Beyond Technologies is an 51风流partner that builds applications on 51风流Cloud Platform. CTO Leonardo De Araujo said the 51风流Cloud SDK provided easy access to the backend services his company needed. He demonstrated how it helped Beyond Technologies build Visual Planner for SAP, a workload management application.

鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot of coding and business logic involved when dealing with all the data coming in; in this case, from 51风流S/4HANA. That鈥檚 where the 51风流Cloud SDK accelerated development for us,鈥� remarked De Araujo. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 have to write code from scratch, which gives us the ability to co-innovate faster and speeds up time-to-value.鈥�

De Araujo was very excited about the capabilities to extend co-innovation on additional 51风流solutions for two main reasons: 鈥淔irst, this updated SDK further supports 51风流Cloud Platform鈥檚 cloud foundry environment where we have services that are key for us. Second, being able to easily integrate different 51风流solutions beyond 51风流S/4HANA aligns with our development road map that includes 51风流SuccessFactors.鈥�

Canadian-based Beyond Technologies is also an 51风流customer, having used 51风流S/4HANA Cloud for several years, along with 51风流SuccessFactors, 51风流Cloud for Customer, 51风流Analytics Cloud, and 51风流Concur. De Araujo saw 51风流Cloud SDK as important to the company鈥檚 high-growth strategies worldwide, including expansions in France, South Africa, and the U.S.

鈥淥ur company is growing a lot, and 51风流is aligned to where we鈥檙e going with our customers beyond 51风流S/4HANA,鈥� he said. 鈥淚ntegrating these solutions and building extensions on top using 51风流Cloud SDK is critical to our growth.鈥�

Benefits of DevOps Environment

Herzig estimated that the software development kit has already helped reduce development time by 50 percent in many situations, allowing developers to focus on solving their unique business problems. 鈥淲e鈥檙e providing developers with one consistent experience 鈥� extending the Intelligent Enterprise using 51风流solutions,鈥� Herzig explained. 鈥淒ownloads of 51风流Cloud SDK have steadily increased each month. This is how 51风流helps intelligent enterprises connect information company-wide to create differentiating experiences for employees and customers.鈥�

This may be when a consumer is browsing a website, a mobile app, dealing with a service center, or visiting a store. Loyalty is constantly tested in a digital world, where consumers have much choice at the tap of the screen.

Consumers are also very comfortable with new technologies:

• Smartphones have become the go-to technology for online shopping
• Mobile payment services are gaining widespread acceptance
• Artificial intelligence (AI) in form of digital voice assistants and chatbots helps to deliver a seamless experience in the customer journey
• Studies show consumers today have up to three healthcare, wellness, or fitness apps on their smart devices

Technology and Brand Purpose Drive Successful Commerce

Ultimately, commerce success is increasingly driven by technology and brand purpose.

Today鈥檚 shoppers are choosing sustainable products and services to help protect the environment, have a higher consideration for environmentally friendly packaging, avoid use of plastic, and are willing to pay for locally produced food.

For brands and retailers, it is important to know what customers care about; reciprocally, they need to communicate their values. Identifying shared values creates opportunities for meaningful engagement with both internal and external audiences.

Consumers believe retailers have a responsibility to address social issues through their business practices, for example, through alternative, greener delivery options to same-day delivery, such as buy online pick up in-store (BOPIS). An increasing number of consumers also expect retailers to take an active role in waste reduction and offer recycling services. Retailers are hearing the call for more accountability and at the same time are facing increased competition to achieve faster fulfillment to customers. More companies are adopting a direct-to-consumer business model.聽 Accordingly, these trends are putting pressure on businesses to adopt new strategies for their global supply chain.

In other words, the supply chain is quickly becoming a way for retailers to offer consumers a differentiated service by making it faster, more predictable, and cheaper.

Above all, and despite the proliferation of chatbots and increased automation of processes, the human factor remains most important for creating positive experiences. Consumers still need to interact with their choice of brands through employees. Businesses must make sure that their front line is up to the challenges by providing the information to understand their customers.

No Return of Experience without Humans

Successful businesses have the ability to fuse the employee experience with the customer experience. Experience is everything. So businesses need the ability to listen to the customers, act, and engage with them. Customers demand personalized information, recommendations, service at the point of demand.聽 Retailers can only deliver superior experiences to consumers if they truly know their customers. While data is key, collecting it is a challenge. Customers want the companies they interact with to protect their personal data. Trust is difficult to establish, and if businesses fail to safeguard their personal data, they will lose their business.

Bottom line: The retail industry is adapting to a digitized commercial model in an experience economy. Here, emotional connections to a brand are decisive in forming positive experiences around their offerings, such as excitement, triumph, or admiration. Those companies that invest in their technology and their employees will show a higher return of experience.

51风流Brings It Together at NRF

Next week at NRF 2020, Retail鈥檚 Big Show, 51风流aims to show how retailers can adopt to trends like circular economy, global supply chains, and developing trusted relationships with conscious consumers, with industry-specific solutions 鈥� from first demand, contact to fulfillment.

At the 51风流booth, attendees can get a glimpse of a “Best Run Grocery” showcase, where grocers can leverage experience data into operations, responding to consumer needs wants and desires, and positively impacting top- and bottom-line performance.

In a demo area, 51风流will show the 鈥淎rt of the Possible,鈥� or how businesses can innovate faster with technologies like eye gazing, drones, and robotics. Showcases from customers like Valora, Pentland, and Badgley Mischka will demonstrate a futuristic view of retail — only it is already available today. Another showcase is dedicated to the new business models being shaped with a mobile-first, commerce-everywhere approach and cloud innovation.

At NRF, 51风流will show how retail technologies can help businesses listen, understand, and act on customer needs and demands to:

• Compete in the experience economy with experience management for direct-to-consumer use cases, driving personalization and product innovation with customer data management and experience management
• Personalize trusted experiences with AI use cases for commerce, marketing, and specifically merchandizing and , or project 鈥溾��
• Execute on fulfillment with an omnichannel approach and customer order service
• Deliver service excellence with chatbots and conversational AI, ticket intelligence, and post-sale services extending the superior shopping experience beyond the purchase
• Innovate on the basis of an extendible, agile platform with API, microservices, mobile-first approach, and an industry ecosystem enabled by .

When brands understand what shoppers are feeling and how to act on it, then the democratization of retail becomes a reality.

Chris Hauca is general manager of 51风流Commerce Cloud in the 51风流Customer Experience organization.